Samsung Announces Slightly Lower Profit in its Quarterly Results

Companies are now releasing with their quarterly performance report cards, providing the industry with an insight of recent activity. Samsung released its figures, and the findings were a bit disappointing given the dip in profit reported. The South Asian giant announced profit of $7.8 billion for Q4 2013, which is a few notches below the $8.27 billion that the company secured during the same period a year ago.

Samsung defended the slightly lower profit margin, claiming much of that has to do with some “year-end inventory adjustments” that they had made. Other reasons have nothing to do with demand for its range of products, but involves an increase in the advertising budget and a $745 million special one-time bonus that it paid to its employees to celebrate 20 years of the new management initiatives the company adopted. To top these off, the company also had to deal with a stronger foreign currency, which affected exchange rates to the tune of a substantial $700 million.

The company reported brisk sales of its tablet devices with the new Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014). However, its mobile division has taken a beating with revenue going down nine percent during the last quarter. Samsung has already announced a slew of launches in the pipeline which they hope will help combat lower profits. Among the big ticket new releases expected in the new few months is a thoroughly refreshed Galaxy S5 smartphone as well as a new Galaxy Gear successor. Then there is the new Pro line of tablets, which means it could be just a matter of time before Samsung is back with an impressive run at the markets.